The May Queen Murders (25 page)

woods where they thought no one’d find it. As mystical this place

was, a hollowness crept through me. She was reckless. She turned

her back on Mamie’s stories. The omens had warned her. She’d ig-

nored them.

She didn’t want to believe.

She didn’t want to be part of the Glen.

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“We’re gonna catch him,” I said.

Emmie crossed her arms over her chest. She looked so much like

her brother in the face, in the swagger of her gait — her skirt want-

ing to shimmy down her plank-straight hips. All she needed was a

cigarette glued to her lips.

She scoffed. “Catching him don’t bring back Heather. Can’t bring

back Terra MacAvoy. She’s bones by now.”

Milo put his arm around his sister. They edged away to leave the

clearing, but Rook hopped up and called to them.

“Hey, before you go, just curious what your mama’s name was,” he

said.

Milo glanced over his shoulder. “Laurel.”

He turned away, and together, he and Emmie retreated from

Heather’s hideaway to cut through the trees, not bothering to stick

to a path. They were twin cryptids, creatures of no classification, as

they were visible for only a few steps before the underbrush folded

around them.

I picked up one of the jewel-colored pillows and sat. Once I was

home, I’d bundle up under Mamie’s blanket and drink her tea. Pray-

ing my nightmares about teeth and knives and bloody skin would

stop for a few hours.

Rook took a spot beside me with his knees pulled to his chest. The

woods were muted, no crackles of unseen squirrels or deer moving

between trees. Even the birds hushed. Perhaps in mourning for the

girl who used to dance here.

I laid my head on Rook’s shoulder. “What’d you think of what

Milo and Emmie?”

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“That they know too much about the old May Queen,” Rook an-

swered.

“What if —” Bringing the words to sound meant unleashing an

idea, a terrible idea. “The MacAvoys ain’t in the Glen anymore. Do

you think they’re Terra MacAvoy’s kin?”

Rook gave it a moment of consideration. “If they are, they’d have

a hell of a grudge against the Glen.”

"

My eyelids twitched. The acridity of smoke burned my nose, and I

sat up, looking first for a house fire, then to my lamp where a smoke

plume danced from the wick. The oil had burned dry after I’d carried

my drawings to bed to page through and fallen asleep. The papers

were scattered across my blanket, and every place I glanced, Heather

stared back.

Poisoned wine. Terra. Milo.

Heather’s necklace draped across the front of my nightgown. I felt

along the metal links until I came to Milo’s ring, which I’d strung on

the chain.

Why was Heather by that river?
To find me.

“She didn’t care,” my sleep-muzzy mouth fumbled.

She did. What if she came to apologize?

If I kept thinking these thoughts, I’d scream and wake the house.

My hand flopped around my nightstand, searching for my mug in

hope maybe some scant tea drops remained to dull my brain. My fin-

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gers caught the mug’s curved handle, and with an awkward spin, the

cup crashed against the floor. I waited for Mama’s feet to bombard

the hal .

Silence.

With Mamie’s blanket on my shoulders, I climbed out of bed, past

my window, white with condensation. Heather used to write mes-

sages on the glass, made me figure out the backwards spelling. Our

code. I dragged my fingers down the pane, removing the fog. Some-

thing lay on the windowsill outside.

I cranked open my window and picked up a piece of agate wrapped

in wire. I’d been with Heather when she unearthed it. She polished it

and made it a charm for her necklace. I’d noticed it was missing, but

here it was on my windowsil . Smudged with dried blood.

I dropped the stone charm. It landed on the floor and rolled a few

inches before coming to rest against the wal .

Heather’s blood.

I tried to scream, though my tongue seemed too large. Someone

was standing in the field.

“D-d-dreaming,” I told myself. “Or a scarecrow.”

I didn’t want to touch anything, but I urged myself — fingers slid-

ing down the window to shut it. But then I couldn’t see where the fig-

ure was, if it neared. My palm flattened against the glass and slashed

up to down, like a gash through the fog.

“No!” I choked on the word.

The shape in the field loomed tal , shrouded with moonlight

around the cape of animal pelts. The torch fires’ gory red glow, the

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neigh of a horse ridden by a guard somewhere far off. Despite the

closed window, I smelled decay and heard the flies buzzing.

Birch Markle stared at me.

I plummeted to the floor, with my knees tucked against my

breasts, and I didn’t move until the robins began their morning song.

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Chapter Seventeen

Just ’cause a fellow’s mad don’t mean he can’t know the

land and how to live off it. Birch’s been out there all these

years. Only a few times, anybody’s caught a glimpse of

him in his animal skins, living off wild honey, bugs, and

blood like some kinda demented John the Baptist.

Copper circles like pennies dried on the field. Some creature died

last night, and its blood fed the Glen’s soil.

As soon as I awakened, I’d braided a garland of basil and clover.

The stems twisted in my fingers, each movement in time with the

memory of Mamie’s tales.
Clover keeps the bad away, and where

there’s basil, no evil can a-enter.

I hung it over my window.

I didn’t want to go back to school. Classes were insignificant now.

What was there to learn? All the teaching couldn’t prepare you for

death. Once I’d been a good student, wanted passing grades, but now

it was a routine I didn’t care about. I’d been away since Heather first

disappeared, and the only reason I went back was because Papa said

I must.

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No one was around when I left for school with Rook. Mama was

at Mamie’s house, helping after Marsh banged on our door in the

middle of the night. He had a limp from where Aunt Rue hit him.

“Woman trouble,” he called it. Not the baby kind, either. Aunt Rue

was in the field, naked under the moon, and hollering for Birch to

take her.

I tried sleeping again, even covering my ears and drinking more

tea, but the screams found me.

During class, I felt the stares, heard the whispers. As much as we

liked to pretend the Glen was an enclave unto itself, it wasn’t true.

The inside and outside mingled, not much but enough that neither

could be unaware of the ripples running through their individual

streams.

The dead girl,
someone whispered.

She’s one of them,
another voice stroked my neck.

I was a dead girl. I’d joined the ranks of Terra and Heather, felt the

chill settle and turn to peace before Rook ripped me away. To walk

between the worlds was my fate. How could I explain that I wasn’t

who I once was but something haunted?

I wanted to live.

I wanted to be Ivy. I hadn’t been ready before, but without Heath-

er, the shade where I dwelled grounded me in a way I had never been

when she pulled me toward the light.

I missed her, though.

The whispers were too loud, and I raised my hand to be excused

to the bathroom. My literature teacher dismissed me. Milo lifted his

head from playing with his cell phone. The classroom was too small

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and tight, the whispers too hot in my ears, and my throat constricted

around itself until I couldn’t breathe. I hurried down the hal way to

a drinking fountain, gulping, gulping, gulping water until the fever

went out of my cheeks.

I rifled through my pockets for a paper. Heather’s words were the

last things of hers I had, even if they were to Milo and spoke of their

promises, the nakedness of their fears.

H,

You say you don’t want to hurt me. Then come with me. We’ll

leave. I’ll help you get out of this middle-of-nowhere hel hole.

Where we go, who we are won’t matter. On May Day, after sun-

set, I promise I’ll wait for you in our place in the woods. That’s

when we’ll go. All those secrets, you won’t have to worry about

anyone finding out. Not your family. Not Ivy. No one. It’ll be just

you and me.

Trust me.

— M

M,

I’m scared.

— H

H,

Don’t be scared.

I’ll be with you. We got this.

— M

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I crushed the paper and shut my eyes. No more crying.

Footsteps shuffled down the hal . Even with my closed eyes, I

sensed Milo’s tallness looming over me. He smelled of smoke and

medicine. His hand rested on my shoulder and then slipped down

my arm to take the paper from me.

I waited a minute before opening my eyes and asking, “Did you

mean it?”

He swallowed and covered his full lips. His skin was scruffy with

light brown stubble. He mimicked my posture with my back to the

lockers and then slid down the metal, slumped with legs splayed out.

“Fucking Heather.” His nose reddened. “It ain’t supposed to be

this way.”

I sat beside him. My hand hovered above his back, and when I

dared touch his shoulder, he was bonier than expected, quivering

with each breath. This roller boy hid his face and muffled the sounds

of his crying. He could be hard and mouthy, but how much was a

reaction to life being hard and mouthy to him?

From what Heather had told me that foggy morning, I believed

she’d loved him. I never considered he actual y loved her with the

same depth. No one loved like Heather.

Hesitant, afraid, I wrapped my arms around him, pulled his head

to rest against my shoulder, and warm teardrops fell from his face to

land on my hand.

He sniffed. “People like Heather, they’re so bright they burn out

too fast.”

Except Heather didn’t burn out. She was extinguished.

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At the end of the school day, Rook and I walked along the road

toward the Glen in a slow, thoughtful stride. My brain dizzied with

Milo’s grief, the love letter I once again scrunched in my hand.

Rook eyed the scrap of paper. “You’re being quiet.”

“I have too many questions,” I answered.

“Start with asking one.”

“What if Milo promised to run away with Heather and never in-

tended to follow through? Or what if they were gonna go but Emmie

stopped them?” I grabbed my head. “What if we’re just wrong about

everything?”

“Hold up. I said to ask one question, not all of them.” Rook forced

a smile. “I don’t trust Milo, but he was in the woods waiting for her.

His sister, though . . .”

We neared the trailer park and walked along the chain-link fence.

Heather was a ghost here, a memory of a laugh, a sudden stream

of red curls. I’d walked beside her for years. Her footsteps carried a

certain weight that I always knew when she was close by.

We were near the gate of the trailer park. Milo’s trailer was visible

with a heavily rusted truck sticking out of the carport.